Carbon Neutral Synthetic Hydrocarbon Fuels

Google Tech Talks
August 28, 2008

ABSTRACT

Transportation accounts for 40% of the CO2 emissions in the state of California. Excluding electricity generation, liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels comprise over 60% of US energy consumption. For many applications, these fuels will continue to be the most economical and highest performance energy source for decades to come even with rising petroleum and natural gas prices. Carbon neutrality requires that the origin and destination of the carbon in fuels be alike (i.e. if it came from the earth, it needs to return there). Biofuel is an option that can possibly meet the requirements of carbon neutrality. A non-biological solution exists where CO2 is extracted from the atmosphere and converted to fuel using available "carbon free" electricity. The cost of this process is not competitive with fossil based hydrocarbon sources today. This talk will discuss the requirements for carbon neutral synthetic fuels and some of the progress toward achieving these goals.

Speaker: Karl Littau
Karl Littau is the manager of the Material and Processes Area at the Palo Alto Research Center (formerly Xerox PARC). His area is responsible for developing printing system technology for documents as well as large area electronics and other applications. In addition he has helped support recent activity at PARC in the areas of solar PV and other renewable energy applications. Previously he worked at Applied Materials in Santa Clara where he developed processes for thin film deposition and reactor design. He has worked for over 20 years in materials chemistry and physics including early work in semiconductor nanocrystal synthesis and characterization.

Category:

Science & Technology

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[algaefaece]

At 31.00 he says that if captured c02 from a power station is used to generate biofuels instead of sinking it in the ground it will result in increased c02 in the atmosphere. The biofuel would be an offset against the use of a fossil fuel...the c02 is essentially re-used. The power station could claim the credit for the carbon offset but the biofuel could not.